"Heed the Goracle"

Gore swept into Toronto yesterday using an environmentally controversial airline on Toronto Island – a service that is opposed by friends of Toronto’s waterfront (including myself.) The departing headlines read: Heed the Goracle.

He spoke for an hour and was a far more accomplished speaker than one remembers from Presidential debates, glancing only occasionally at notes. It was like a Southern Baptist orator had seamlessly changed texts. His speech was a type of sermon: a few well-practised jokes to start, a commentary on selected verses followed by a call to commit. … His presentation

and appearance resulted in a type of secular avatar of Jerry Falwell.

A number of posters thought that I was too snarky. However, it seems that my take on Gore was not that far off the take of most of the Toronto reporters – all of whom, like me, were struck by the revivalist character of the Goracle. Here are a few excerpts and links:

They came in their hundreds to hear him speak, and even those left standing outside the crowded hall would not be deterred from lingering in the proximity of the Baptist prophet from Tennessee. …

There were vegans seeking new recruits, people calling for the closing of Ontario’s coal-fired power plants, a Greenpeace mascot dressed as a polar bear — even the UFO believers showed up. “I know you won’t believe this,” one of them, a man named Victor Viggiani, said with a practised tongue, “but the extraterrestrial technology involved in this . . . it’s free energy, man. Absolute free energy, and it’ll be the end of fossil fuels.” Mr. Viggiani, a retired school principal, tried to get an information package to Mr. Gore when he arrived at a side door, but “the Secret Service were there; they saw my backpack and they pushed me away.”

Across the driveway in front of the hall, a large banner exhorted the crowd to “Heed the Goracle.” Belonging to a fledgling group called ecoSanity, it was still there hours later, as Mr. Gore enjoyed a reception at the adjacent Simcoe Hall and the dispersing crowd voiced its praise.

Then, after taking the Porter Airways afternoon commuter flight to Toronto, he gave a sold out lecture at the University of Toronto, where he was greeted by a throng of supporters, two of whom displayed a bedsheet with the slogan “Heed the Goracle.”

At Mr. Gore’s request, media were barred from taking notes at the Montreal event and from even attending the Toronto one, which was based largely on his celebrated film, An Inconvenient Truth.

From “Gore the Bore” to American Idol. And, with James Brown gone to soul heaven, inheritor of the title: Hardest Working Man in Showbiz.Who needs the Oval Office when you’ve got a cosmic platform from which to preach the Gospel of Global Warming Warning?”Hello, I’m Al Gore,” he said by way of introduction. “I used to be the next president of the United States.” Ba-da-boom.”Heed the Goracle”!, urged one placard among many welcoming signs outside the University of Toronto’s Convocation Hall, where pro-demonstrators (and a polar bear) held a candlelit vigil for Kyoto, just beyond the bank of gas-guzzling limousines.

It was at Harvard, in the ’60s, that Gore was pulled into the gravitational orbit of ecology-devotees, taught by Roger Revelle, the first scientist to monitor carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.Presumably, this was all happening simultaneous to the charmed existence of an Ivy League swain-on-campus, Gore once claiming he was the prototype for the Ryan O’Neal character in Love Story. Author Erich Segal, who was a classics scholar at Harvard at the time, demurred. Turns out Gore’s roommate — Tommy Lee Jones — was the actual “Oliver” model.

That episode was embarrassing for Gore. He’s had quite a few — embarrassments — over the length and breadth of his career. Like, say, when he claimed to have invented the Internet, just a slight exaggeration.

Or that notorious kiss he planted on wife Tipper’s lips after accepting the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000, a lung-buster PDA in which he bent the Missus so far back it looked like her spine would snap.

Toronto Sun (iconoclastic and not pro-Kyoto by nature)
Temporarily has a video of the Gore epiphany in Toronto here Story here

Tree Huggers Gored: Green giant Al Gore swept into town last night for his one night show on global warming that generated more heat than a rock concert.

That episode was embarrassing for Gore. He’s had quite a few ‘€” embarrassments ‘€” over the length and breadth of his career. Like, say, when he claimed to have invented the Internet, just a slight exaggeration.

Yeah, and his present Sermons on the Mount may add to the list of embarassments, when all the catastrophes predicted by the radical AGW crowd fail to materialize. A couple of cold years might even be enough to do it.

Of course he comes across as a preacher, since Divinity was his major field of study, as I recall.

The Gore effect — intense winter conditions wherever Al shows up to speak about global warming — brought heavy snow in the Toronto area starting at night after the speech ended. Traffic was slow and treacherous this morning due to accumulation of several centimeters before road crews had time to start clearing it.

We laugh at Gore but he is only a category 5 hit on Miami away from the Presidency. Let us hope long long odds. Dr. Pielke thinks Gore has a shot without mentioning a precipitating disaster. Frankly, Dr. Pielke’s knows more about the way the wind blows than I ever will. Perhaps he calculates a hurricane in on the sly and is only waiting for a good time to place his bet.

But serieously, folks. Al has responded to a political opportunity in the manner that only a “previously next President of the United States” could do. The issue is now totally political and with the invocation of the Bob Geldof “World Concert” principle, how can anyone dis a movement that will not only save the Earth, but has Cameron Diaz as a headliner!

Yeah, and his present Sermons on the Mount may add to the list of embarassments, when all the catastrophes predicted by the radical AGW crowd fail to materialize. A couple of cold years might even be enough to do it.

Nah, it will just be spun. Gore will probably take/receive credit for bringing AGW awareness and preventing the catastrophes.

And do you think the surface record would really show “a couple of cold years” with all of the tinkering that’s been going on?

I don’t want to discuss U.S. presidential politics here. There are plenty of other places to do so. I realize that a “Heed the Goracle” thread rather invites such a discussion, but I still don’t want to do it. It was pretty hard for me not to comment on the coverage of Gore’s epiphany in Toronto, but this type of discussion can easily take over the blog and I want to avoid it.

The current edition of The Economist has a story entitled “Waiting for Al”, about Gore’s candidacy for the 2008 presidential election:

… there is a huge opportunity for somebody to arrive late and steal the show.
Step forward Al Gore. Mr Gore has enough of a national profile to command instant credibility. He has rich friends to finance him. He will also command plenty of attention in his own right over the next few months: his film “An Inconvenient Truth” could win an Oscar for best documentary on Sunday, and he may be up for the Nobel peace prize in the autumn.
Mr Gore is the ideal candidate for the Democratic stalwarts who turn out to vote in the primaries. …

I don’t want to discuss U.S. presidential politics here. There are plenty of other places to do so. I realize that a “Heed the Goracle” thread rather invites such a discussion, but I still don’t want to do it.

Certainly Gore cannot be taken seriously as a scientist and that really leaves only Gore the politician/policy guy to talk about — but I agree those discussions can go on forever and are essentially wasted bandwidth.

His popularity on the policy front, I would think, comes from those who are really into AGW/ environmental causes. He does not have to make the measured comments of scientists and that makes working a crowd less restraining. His persona does not suffer from a mean streak from which most politicians suffer and the apparent caricature he does of himself when on the stage makes any self importance easier to take. I would think, however, that there are scientists out there with an advocacy bent for AGW who must cringe on occasion when Gore attempts to make arguments for AGW and dramatically prescribe actions for mitigating the effects thereof.

Hollywood’s stock in trade is fictionalizing history and the future so Al Gore has navigated precisely to the center of gravity with An Inconvenient Truth. The fawning over him was revealing and chilling. I almost expected a Sally Field moment, except he really thinks its deserved praise.

They are making fun of Al Gore on almost every radio station in town here this morning; and not the political talk radio stations either, the music stations discussing the Oscar broadcast. They keep playing the sound bites recorded by reporters who were there of all the laughter that erupted after Al Gore proclaimed global warming wasn’t a political issue. They edited it out somehow on the telly. That is pretty chilling as well.

Rocksy: I can understand the laughter. For some reason, the thought or mention of Gore always makes me smile. I cannot quite put my finger on just why. He reminds me of eeyore in Winnie-the-Pooh (especially because he’s a Democrat). Maybe I’ve just seen too many cartoons about him inventing the internet. I wonder if a lot of people don’t feel the same about him.

RE: #31 – A secret composite supersonic biz jet, made with investment by Algore and Sir Richard, in a stealth hangar at the Mojave Airport … I heard it burns a special kerosene that can only be derived from high sulfur Chinese coal … ;)

RE: #37 – RE: ‘The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh’€”more than 20 times the national average.”

And to think that our humble abode, peopled by so called rich (at least according to the tax man) GOP card carrying knuckle dragging reputed “denialists,” consumes but a fraction of the average household figure. We get the maximum rebate whenever PG&E offers a reduction related reward. And this is with the house as is, we have things planned which will shave off even more. Perhaps someday we’ll be feeding into the grid. I can afford to be very harsh regarding AGW hysteria, given that my figurative “house” is made from stone, not glass. I could be giving the vast majority of Green extremists lessons on how to walk the talk.

Al, Gore was vice president of the United States and won best documentary. Anyone see any connection. Best documentary is kind of like a consolation prize. Atleast that is what Michael more thought when he turned it down because he wanted to win best film. I guess Al Gore has no trouble being the best loser.

I’m sure Gore will tell you that it’s ok for him to use lots of energy, since he also purchases “green credits”. Pay people to plant
trees. Pay other people to use less energy. Etc.

The actual result is what happens whenever rich liberals start telling the rest of us how to live our lives. They can easily afford
the extra costs they are impossing on society. The rest of us however, get to starve in the dark, so that our lords and masters can
feel good about themselves.

RE: #41 – Of note, forests in Europe increased greatly during the Dark Ages (cold period) and continued to increase a bit during the MWP. Only with the Renaissance was there renewed growth in cleared land …. ;)

“I think … it is important to look at the pressures that made it more likely than not that mainstream journalists in the United States would convey a wholly inaccurate conclusion about the most important moral, ethical, spiritual and political issue humankind has ever faced.”

During his time as vice president of the USA in 2000 a Kyoto conference was held in the Hague (COP6) in which the USA delegation torpedoed the agreement by insisting that USA forests should count as sink in the national CO2 budget.

Gores admonishment of the media simply shows his and, I believe, other AGW advocates for more immediate action for mitigation, growing frustration that they will have to eventually face head on. That is the resistance of the public to agree to changes for climate disaster avoidances that firstly have not been proven with any certitude and secondly with consequences not yet experienced nor expected to be experienced for some time.

Gore is a politician and politicians normally do not want to attack the voting public nor even admonish them and therefore they look to surrogates such as in this case the “denialists” and skeptics and evidently now the media. I see this same tendency of the scientist/advocate to use scapegoats when they should honestly know better. Can one rationally find evidence that skeptics have that much power and influence on this issue and can one really say that on the whole that the media is sympathetic to the skeptic’s case?

This continued spanking of the media when it gives any voice at all to the skeptical case reminds me of times of war (less so now than in former times) when the tendency can be a call to dispense with the views of the opposition minority in the name of more efficiently waging that war.

President Gore reviewed some of his actions and their unintended consequences:

“In the last six years we have been able to stop global warming. No one could have predicted the negative results of this. Glaciers that once were melting are now on the attack. As you know, these renegade glaciers have already captured parts of upper Michigan and northern Maine. But I assure you: we will not let the glaciers win.”

If Gore visited Toronto, I could hardly not comment. And yes, it leads to some venting. I realize this. I’m not complaining about the venting to date. I’d just like to have a Goratorium on it for a while.

Assuming reducing CO2 is some sort of moral imperative to save the Earth, Gore’s using 20x as much energy as the average American, while maintaining ‘Carbon neutral’ status through investment strikes me as being the logical equivalent of going on a murder spree, but arguing its ‘Life neutral’ because one has donated money to immunization efforts.

What I find interesting is that Gore’s company GIM invests in alternative energy companies. So when other people also invest
in such companies, their stock prices go up, which makes GIM’s and hence Gore’s investments, more valueable.

Those on the alarmist side of this debate frequently tell us that anyone who has a financial interest in this debate, must be
ignored.

#62. It’s bitterly cold in March as well. Wind chill last night was minus 35 (!). The main highway in downtown Toronto (Gardiner Expressway) was closed yesterday due to falling ice. Our fuel bills are way up this year due to keeping increased cold out as well as higher fuel prices. Notwithstanding all of this, I’m sure that CRU will report that winter 2007 was the 5th warmest ever and GISS the 2nd warmest ever.

#64. Toronto gets a lot less snow than surrounding areas, especially western Ontario (which gets lake effect snow). Most of the snow from the west falls prior to Toronto and the little ridge to the north of the city (a glacial moraine) seems to remove quite a bit. So statistics from Toronto cannot be compared to western Ontario.

The sensitive, global synchroniety of abrupt Younger Dryas [(YD)] climate oscillations, shown by double YD moraines in the Pacific NW, Rocky Mts., Swiss Alps, Canada, Scandinavia, and New Zealand, challenges the viability of changes in the North Atlantic deep current to explain such abrupt changes in both hemispheres with no time lag. New cosmogenic dates from twin YD moraines in the North Cascades and Sawtooth Mts. confirm that the western U.S. was sensitive to these abrupt climate changes, far removed from any oceanic connection to the North Atlantic.

These late Pleistocene, global, climate changes have implications for understanding present’€”day global warming. Climatic modelers have predicted that global temperatures will soar in the next several decades as a result of increased atmospheric CO2. However, evidence from glaciers and the oceans suggest that these predictions may be premature. Advance and retreat of glaciers in the Pacific NW and elsewhere show three distinct oscillations, each having a period of ~25’€”30 years. Glaciers advanced from about 1890 until the early 1920s (cool cycle), retreated rapidly from ~1930 to ~1950-55 (warm cycle), readvanced from ~1955 to ~1980 (cool cycle), then retreated rapidly from ~1980 to the present (warm cycle). Comparable, cyclical, oscillation patterns occurred in the North Pacific (PDO), the North Atlantic (NAO), Europe, and Greenland. Global temperature curves show a cool reversal from ~1950 to 1980) at a time when large amounts of CO2 were introduced into the atmosphere, inferring that global temperatures then were not driven by atmospheric CO2. During this cool cycle, solar irradiance curves almost exactly match the global temperature curve. Satellite data indicate intensifying solar radiation over the past 24 years, coinciding with the present 25’€”year warm cycle and suggesting a solar cause for the warming. If the cycles continue as in the past, the current warm cycle should end in the next few years, and global warming should abate, rather than increase, in the next 25’€”30 years, followed by renewed global warming in the following 25’€”30 years.”

Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh’€”more than 20 times the national average.

Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.

In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006.

I will assume that a thread titled “heed the goracle” is immune from ‘off topic’ issues, having no substance to begin with, and will post this here so as not to ‘contaminate’ the serious work going on elsewhere.

As to the graph, how about one showing the energy spectra of said quakes. And then one showing how far away such quakes could be detected, followed by one showing when such locations received equipment capable of such detection.

IOW, I expect the glacial quakes are on the less energetic side and that locating and attributing such quakes wasn’t a high priority until recently.

Anyway, we know there are thousands of non-glacial earthquakes a year, not one or 2 hundred. What in the world is this graph supposed to be?

This surely has to be adopted by ClimateAudit as its official blog theme tune? What do you think Steve M and John A?

Kevin, I hesitated to post this because I think it would be inappropriate to call Steve M a “denier” since he has not taken a position on AGW, his work is too focused to do that and its all about what you are “denying”.

I am willing to be calling a “denier” if I get to define what I am denying. If I am allowed to say, I would say that I deny that there is satisfactory proof of significant human induced global warming as the result of increased concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.

I do embrace the power of humor and ridicule in public debate, but this is a science blog.

What were the measurements prior to 1993? Where are these measurements from? How do they correlate with local temperatures?
What is the minimum energy to count as an earthquake? What about a link to the actual paper?
What has this got to do with correcting local temperature measurements for UHI?

Are all marked increases or decreases in phenomena over the last 30 years due to Global Warming? Have you and Gore stumbled on a Theory of Everything?

Steve M and John A have on several occasions on this blog said that they do not ‘deny’ the existence of the current global warming trend. For the record neither do I nor the vast majority of people who post on threads on this blog. However many (including myself) do have a problem and therefore in the eyes of some ‘deny’ (i.e. fail to agree that the current warming trend is prdominant caused by man’s emissions of CO2) the existence of anthropogenic (man-caused) global warming. When a poll was conducted recently on the blog asking for opinions on what were thought man’s contribution to the current warming trend was my ‘top-limit’ estimate was 30% i.e. that I think that no more than 30% of the current warming trend was due to man’s emissions of CO2. I recollect that my opinion was somewhat higher than most and so in a sense I am nearer to being a ‘warmer’ than a ‘denier’than others on this blog. Nonetheless I’m happy to be labelled a ‘denier’ by the ‘warmers’ hence my suggestion for adopting the Monkey’s parodied song ‘I’m a Denier’ you linked to as a theme tune.

Yes, this blog is very much a scientific blog but from time to time it does benefit in my opinion from an injection of humour so oncemore thank you for you very amusing link.

RE #91 Thanks for the link, Lee. The idea of rapid ocean cooling in that timeframe seemed quite unlikely to me. I would expect flatline, based on the subsurface temperature readings from buoys in 2003-2005.

Do you know of any free copies of the article in #90? I have questions about the detection methodology over 1993-2005.

Glacial quakes were first identified as distinct events in 2003, by the same authors. They co-locate with marginal glaciers, and have a characteristic period” of 30-60 seconds.

I assume you meant 1993, since that’s when their data series starts. If this is a new phenomena, its a bit off showing this graph without being clear about the extent of the surveillance available. The graph implicitly says that over the 13 year period that no change in measurement methodologies has taken place. Assuming that the measurement device previously failed to distinguish between glacial and non-glacial, a stacked bar chart would be a more appropriate way of summarizing the data since there is clearly an issue with the recognition of glacial and non-glacial earthquakes.

When you do create the stacked histogram it becomes immediately clear that there is a critical need to ensure that glacial quakes have a distinct signature, both from land quakes and seaquakes. I assume that the article demonstrated that measurement process could distinguish them in a way that allowed for independent verification.

Lee:
It would have been better if you had provider a fuller discussion of your chart. Apparently there were others who strongly disagreed with the “convenient” conclusion that this pattern reflected AGW.

Joughin says the record only goes back to 1993, so we dont know what happened with glacial quakes before that. Well, duh! This doesn’t alter the correlation with season (and temp) and the upturn over the last couple years, with the clear implication of increasing temperatures.

Hanna and Cappelen (2003) looked at Greenland temps from 1958 – 2001, found a decline in temps over the entire period. The Idsos do not report any details about the record over the last few years of that analysis, and of course it doesnt include period of the significant upturn in glacial quakes.

Przybylak (2000) data ended in 1999.

Comiso et al. (2001) looked at characteristics of the Odden ice tongue for the period 1979 – 1998. Again, it stops before it has any meaning for this current result.

Chyklek at all also looks at data ending in 2000.

Despite this, the Idsos say:

“In light of these several real-world observations, it is clear that the recent upswing in glacial activity on Greenland likely has had nothing to do with anthropogenic-induced global warming, as temperatures there have yet to rise either as fast or as high as they did during the great warming of the 1920s, which was clearly a natural phenomenon.”

This is obviously and fundamentally dishonest. The Idsos are dismissing a link between temp and the increase in a phenomenon that shows marked change AFTER 2002, with temperature data that ALL ends BEFORE 2002. I’m not cherry picking, bernie, I’m ignoring the Idsos dishonest and absurd commentary.

Lee:
I just read the pre-print version of this article Fascinating. It is far more measured in its linkage of these events to GW.

5. Conclusions and Implications
All 184 observed Greenland glacial earthquakes occur south of 78⸠N and in regions with ice flow velocities greater than 800 m/yr (ice streams and large outlet glaciers). All events have amplitudes between 0.1-2.0à—1014 kg m. Events of smaller amplitude may exist but are not detected. All mechanisms are consistent with sliding of large masses of ice in the direction of glacial flow over a period of about 50 s, although additional observations are required to determine the degree to which this model is just an approximation of the actual source mechanism. The seasonality and increase in total number of events in the past few years suggests that glacial earthquakes are sensitive to temperature or variables affected by temperature. Although events are tightly clustered, locations have a wider spread in the sliding direction implying that events are not all co-located.
Different glaciers display different glacial-earthquake behavior. Each glacier has slightly different seasonal behavior, with peaks in activity in different months. Some glaciers but not all show the dramatic increase in number of events in the past few years. Some regions (e.g., region K) are consistent with a constant number of events per year whereas other regions (e.g., region NWG) have had an unmistakable dramatic increase during the same time period. Glacial earthquakes in region K are larger on average than in any other region, with these events comprising all of the events larger than 0.9à—1014 kg m. The distribution of these (region K) events does not resemble a Gutenberg-Richter distribution, but instead has a peak at 0.6à—1014 kg m, suggesting that glacial earthquakes may have a characteristic size that depends on attributes of the glacier where they occur.

Moreover, counterintuitively at least for me the frequency of glacier quakes was higher in the higher latitudes. It seems that the 1993 limit is based upon the limited records. The signature of a glacial quake does seem somewhat unique. The annual pattern of the 184 quakes spread over a 13 year period was deemed temperature related – a general summmer peak, but the small N, the dispersion of the patterns over 7 locations and the variations by location suggest that other factors are operating. I have yet to read the Science article, but judging from the other commentaries it looks like somebody “juiced it”.

Recent (post-1975) temperatures have risen but I don’t see anything extraordinary, except for the station that starts with an E, for 2003-2005.

My main curiosity has to do with what you noted in this quote:

I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out how a phenomenon first identified in 2003 can be studied in data going back to 1993.

I suppose they are looking at older seismograph records, looking for weak-energy events (icequakes). It can be tricky to detect trends if instrument sensitivity and coverage changed (improved) over time.

Lee:
One more point. Given the number of weather stations and their relative proximity to these events, I am curious as to why at least the origiinal report makes no mention of the year over year changes.
In addition given the dispersion of the earthquakes why no correlation with the non-glacial earthquakes. Could not the latter trigger the other? Seems to me that strong conclusions are not warranted and were not made in the very interesting pre-Science draft!!

Lee:
I have to apologize, the article I referenced above is not the pre-pub version of the Science article. It is a different article covering thr same basic data. The “juiced” assertion was unwarranted.

Lee, thank you for your interesting link to the Ekstrom article. I noted some curiosities:

1) Why start the analysis in 1993? Seismological records extend to well before that time, and even if they are only using the Global Seismographic Network data referenced in the paper, it goes back to 1986.

2) The numbers don’t add up. There are 184 icequakes listed, 136 of which received detailed analysis. However, the seasonality chart lists 151 quakes, and the year-by-year data lists 154 quakes. Thus, they have left about 20% of the data out of their analysis, and have used different numbers for the seasonality and year-by-year data … which may mean nothing, but I always get nervous when the numbers don’t add up and there is no explanation why.

3) The two closest stations to the icequakes with air temperature records that run to modern times are Egedesminde and Angmagssalik. Both of these are within 50 km or so of a large concentration of icequakes. Both of them show cooling temperatures since 2002. If the increase in icequakes is due to rising air temperature, why have the icequake numbers not fallen from 2002 – 2005?

4) To determine if the icequakes are related to regular quakes, they compare the number of icequakes in Greenland to the number of regular quakes north of 45° N … say what? Why didn’t they compare the number of icequakes in Greenland to the number of normal quakes in Greenland?

Overall, my conclusion is that the record is simply too short to draw many inferences from the data. In fact, when adjusted for autocorrelation, the trend in icequakes is not significantly different from zero … the pitfalls of short datasets. Seems crazy, I know, because it sure looks like a trend, but statistical analysis says we don’t have enough data yet to establish the existence of a trend, much less to assign causality.

On Greenland:
increased summer melt ponding
increased glacier mobility
increased glacial quaking that seems associated wtih glacial mobility
longer and warmer growing season – greenland farmers are reporting getting two cuttings of hay over the last few seasons, for the first time.

These are all qualitative, but they are all in agreement. It is clearly getting warmer on Greenland. And it isn’t because of urban heat island effects.

Lee, thanks for your response. You say “It is clearly becoming warmer in Greenland”. However, temperatures have peaked in 2002 and have dropped since then. In addition, increased glacier mobility does not necessarily imply warming. As the ice cap thickens, glaciers may increase in speed, and indications are that the ice cap has been thickening.

Overall, I would agree with you that the Greenland temperatures have risen since the 1960s … with the caveat that there is no indication that this is anything unusual, as the temperatures in Greenland were higher during the 1930s-1940s than they are at present.

However, none of this means anything about whether UHI is affecting temperatures in Greenland, or anywhere else for that matter. It is possible to have warming and UHI effects, which would mean that it is warming but not as much as the temperature records indicate. It is a particular possibility in Polar regions, as it takes fewer people to make a difference in cold temperatures.

w.

PS – a Google search has failed to turn up any reports of farmers getting two crops of hay in Greenland … cite?

Willis, it seems to me that Lee is referring to an article that quotes a farmer who says that if Greenland’s warming keeps up it – could soon allow him to grow 2 crops of hay – it is conditional on rising temps

Ive also read severalotherarticles about his, bu tthisone should suffice.
—
“The conditions for living are getting better,” says Kaj Egede, the chairman of Greenland’s Board of Agriculture, in his office in Qaqortoq.

Some farmers are trying new types of produce, such as broccoli, cauliflower and Chinese cabbage. Most are getting more from their old crops. “Usually we only have one cut of hay,” says Kenneth Hoegh, a farming consultant for Greenland’s Department of Agriculture. “But because it is getting warmer — it is definitely getting warmer — more and more farmers are getting two cuts of hay.”

Those higher yields are rippling through the agriculture chain. Over the past five years, a doubled hay crop has helped sheep farmer Erik Rode Frederiksen. He was named after Eric the Red, a Viking explorer who settled Greenland around 980. The extra hay gives him fatter sheep worth more money at slaughter. Sheep flocks across the country have increased 10% in the past three years, according to government statistics.

From the early 1960s to 1998 cows were rare in Greenland, and Greenlanders relied on powdered milk subsidies from the Danish government. But improved grazing and hay fodder are tempting some farmers and sheep ranchers to add cows to their livestock holdings.

For Greenlanders, adapting to the effects of climate change is nothing new. Oxygen isotope samples taken from Greenland’s ice core reveal that temperatures around 1100, during the height of the Norse farming colonies, were similar to those prevailing today. The higher temperatures were part of a warming trend that lasted until the 14th century.

Lee and Willis:
I took a closer look at the Science Article and made some inferences based on what Ekstrom & Tsai indicated in their earlier paper. Willis I think you are right to look carefully at the number of events.

The Science article indicates the following geographic distribution of glacial events:

The Science article goes on to note that ” a part of the increase in the number of glacial earthquakes is due to the occurrence of more than two dozen of these earth quakes in 2000 to 2005 at the northwest Greenland glaciers, where only one event (in 1995) had previously been observed.” (p1757)

Now Tsai and Ekstrom also say in the earlier paper:
“Some regions (e.g., region K) are consistent with a constant number of events per year (emphasis added) whereas other regions (e.g., region NWG) have had an unmistakable dramatic increase during the same time period.” page 10 Analysis of Glacial Quakes

NWG and RI glacier comples account for 43 of 182 or 27 of 136. The net increase in earthquakes from 2000 to 2005 is 51 out of a total of 182. Obviously if all but one of the 43 NWG/RI GQs occurred in this period we have the overwhelming percentage (80%) of the increase coming from 2 glacier complexes in Greenland. If this is true, then the numbers are such that whatever seems to be happening is not a Greenland event but a Northwest Greenland event and should be interpreted as such.

I can’t understand why the editors at Science would not have queried this?

“But because it is getting warmer ‘€” it is definitely getting warmer ‘€” more and more farmers are getting two cuts of hay.”

Lee, thanks for pointing to the positive aspects of global warming. Outside of a recent paper by Lobell and Field, much the same has been predicted for agriculture in general. We seem to be too ready to concentrate on the negative aspects – whatever they may be.

AIT: 17:06 “In the himalayas there is a particular problem because 40% of all the people in the world, get their drinking water from rivers and spring systems that are fed more than half by the meltwater coming off the glaciers and within this next half century those 40% of the people on earth are going to face a serious shortage because of this melting.”

“The eastern Himalaya, in general, provide moisture surpluses from direct runoff of the abundant summer monsoon rainfall; the snow-melt contribution is comparatively insignificant. With increasing distance toward the west-northwest meltwater becomes critically important. A particularly heavy summer monsoon, for instance, which produces excess water (and flooding) in the eastern half of the region, may only serve to lower the summer flow of the western rivers since the increased cloud cover (with little or no rain/snow) will serve to reduce incoming solar radiation and thus limit meltwater production. Additionally, summer snow at high altitudes in the northwest, by greatly increasing surface reflectance (albedo), will curtail melting. “

Al Gore’s claim is: “40% of all the people in the world” 40% of 6 billion is 2400 million or the population of China, India and Bangladesh.

Bangladesh and China are not dependent on the himalayan glaciers, (and besides that China just completed the Three Gorges Dam for seasonal regulation. In India only the western states bounding the himalaya are depending on its meltwater. This reduces the alledged affected number to 200 million. However even that region has more problems when the snow is not melting in the dry season.

So it is 200 million people (or 3% of “all the people in the world”) who are depending on the meltwater of the himalayas, and they suffer most when the snow is not melting.

A particular problem in Bhutan and Nepal is that natural Glacial moraine lakes are bursting their banks which leads to flash floods. Partial draining projects are already tackling this specific problem.

RE: #113 – If those moraines are anything like the ones here in the Western US, then they are ~ at the maximum extent lines of the Younger Dryas, mas o menos. So, bursting moraines means? Only that there was wicked massive snowpack during the previous Monsoon and winter seasons (there are accumulations during both). Then the snowpack melts during the March – April hot season, and lo and behold, the moraines get overtopped or overpressured and burst. I’d also be willing to bet that either rodents or human disturbance plays a prominent role in weakening the moraines.